Category: LETTERS Page 63 of 274

To Daniel MacGhie Cory
Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6
Rome, March 14, 1945

I see by your letter of Jan. 29th, that you have been officially debasing my pure and legitimate English to conform with the vernacular. The substitution of on for in has been going on for ages, and no doubt is bound to go on further. We all say “on earth”, but King James’ Bible says “in earth;” and the immense difference appears more clearly in a line of Cary’s Dante: “I was a virgin sister in the earth.” That is lovely: a good translation of Io fui nel mondo vergine sorella. Imagine what a come-down if he had said “on earth”! As to passengers in ships, the Prayer Book prays only for them, not for those on ships: and I confess that, though we say “on board” and “on deck”, when I am in my cabin with perhaps three decks over my head, it seems absurd to say I am on the ship and not in her. But in (why not on?) America I suppose they would say that Jonah was three days and three nights on his whale and not in her; and she might confirm that view by complaining that he had got on her stomach.

I regard this edition of Persons & Places as a mutilated victim of war, and dream of a standard edition, which probably I shall never see, in which the original words, the omitted passages, and the marginal comments (not headings, as in the Triton edition) shall be restored and the portraits and other illustrations shall be well reproduced.

From The Letters of George Santayana:  Book Seven, 1941-1947.  Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2006.
Location of manuscript: Butler Library, Columbia University, Cambridge MA.

To Justus Buchler and Benjamin P. Schwartz
Hotel Danieli
Venice. March 13, 1940

The winter here, as elsewhere, has been extraordinarily severe: six snow-storms, continual fog, and occasional biting winds from Finnland. Now that peace seems to be returning at least there, we may hope for more balmy weather.

From The Letters of George Santayana:  Book Six, 1937-1940.  Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2004.
Location of manuscript: Brooklyn College Library, Brooklyn NY.

To George Sturgis
Hotel Danieli
Venice. March 12, 1940

I hope your trip to Mexico went well. Several people have recently sent me books about Spanish America. It seems to be a very second class place, except for a very few vestiges of old Spanish dignity or religion. But of course, in an Americanized hotel, you will enjoy the tropical warmth and vegetation and like the atmosphere of “moral holiday” that prevails there—like it, I mean, for a change.

Is it true, as an unknown correspondent has written to me, that the stage in America has become “immoral”? This person had sent me a dramatization of The Last Puritan, in which my “Nathaniel” (George Parkman) and his old father both try to rape the young Caroline, their step-sister and step-daughter, while Nathaniel beats his wife. I protested that these were not the manners of Beacon Street in my time, and that he mustn’t use my name or the title of my book for his production. He now says he is going to burn it! Meno male!

From The Letters of George Santayana:  Book Six, 1937-1940.  Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2004.
Location of manuscript: The Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge MA.

To Mary Potter Bush
C/o Brown Shipley & Co. London
Oxford, England. March 11, 1916

Although the battle of Verdun is still going on, I think the worst consequences which we feared at first are less threatening, whatever the issue may be. The French have defended themselves so efficaciously that even if they retire, it will probably not be without having inflicted paralysing losses on the enemy. It is all very horrible and very perilous; but I feel on the whole less depressed and oppressed than hitherto.

When one thinks that the greater part of mankind have always had war at their gates, and no certainty of food for the morrow, and yet have survived and been merry on every possible pretext, one understands how it is possible to get used to anything even to this war.

As to The New Republic, I have long been despleased with it, and am not going to contribute to it any longer. They seem to be a set of disinherited Bohemians, clever and amiable enough, but without any solid affections or any solid instruction. I like some of them personally, and for that reason consented to write for them sometimes, but I don’t like their friends nor their principles. And I imagine they have not force enough to count for very much, even on the wrong side.

. . . You needn’t fear that I am stranded or in trouble of any material sort. I have a (Spanish) passport and might go to Spain or Italy if I chose but I prefer to wait until things are comparatively normal again—they will never be quite the same—and meantime I am quite comfortable here, leading a self-indulgent life, seeing some people (Strong daily) and finishing my book on Egotism in German philosophy.

. . . I sometimes am quite in doubt whether my writing is feeble and too smooth, or rash and too violent.

From The Letters of George Santayana:  Book Two, 1910-1920.  Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2001.
Location of manuscript: Butler Library, Columbia University, New York NY.

To Mary Whitall Smith Berenson
Hotel Bristol
Rome. March 10, 1930

What! Do you propose that I should make a visit? It is a delusion of your excessive kindness to imagine that I might still be fit for such things. I am not; because although well enough in appearance, and still going strong in the solitude of my insides, I am deaf physically and intellectually, and incapable of society.

I have so long and so completely renounced all society that I don’t dare to go anywhere, and say nothing when I do.

From The Letters of George Santayana:  Book Four, 1928–1932.  Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2003. Location of manuscript: Villa I Tatti, Settignano, Italy.